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I always felt that there was a difference between loosing and being beaten.
Yall agree that the US lost yesterday?
The 18th hole yesterday in Tiger and Phil's match was a gift to the Euros. The fact that Tiger so readily took the penalty instead of "creating" a back hand chip or something, told me that he was resigned to loosing the match! Any other time I would have expected some kind of heroic effort....I do beleive he made the right choice. The look on his face said it all.

Well, if there's a difference, here are my definitions for both:

Losing: You easily could have won but you just didn't take advantage of opportunities when they came.

Getting Beaten: You did everything possible to win but someone was just better. An example of this would be Ernie Els in the Masters. I believe he was beaten by Phil Mickelson for the championship.

Since there were 8 matches, I would have to say it was a little bit of both. In that first match, Tiger and Phil were beaten. Like Colin said in his press conference, they birdied 6 of the first 8 holes in that match. Pretty hard to beat a team in 18 hole match play when they're on fire like that.

I've been in the spot Phil hit that ball, and Tiger had no shot. He was over 250 yards from the green, with a stand of small trees directly in front of him. A left-handed shot (risky even for Tiger) would have only advanced the ball a short distance, along the fence line, and would have put the ball in worse trouble. As it turned out, Phil's poor short approach shot was as damaging as his tee shot. The US could've halved the hole with a bogie.

I agree, Rokmom, that there is a difference; unfortunately, the result is the same and history will probably not pay much attention to the distinction.

All those putts the Euros made beat us.

Ditto. Tiger had no line, no shot, nothing there & was 260 out. Phil was pathetic on that hole. I know he hasn't switched completely, but does anyone know which clubs he's switched ? Very bad idea ...